“The coven leaders suspected the missing witches were being used as breeders.” I thought of Luci and wondered if this poor fire witch could be her mother. Then I remembered who I was talking to and hissed at him.

Thad’s eyes narrowed, his face tight with control. “There are five women with red hair, nearly two dozen with blonde hair, and in another room, there are forty or so with black hair.”

I shut my mouth, reconsidering my plans to eviscerate him. He huffed. “I had to do something while you lay there unconscious.”

“Seemed like you were doing plenty enough,” I sneered. “How about you help me release them all, and then—”

“Wren.”

My wings arched over my head; my fangs bared. “What?”

“Look at these women. Look at them.”

I did. They were all emaciated, sick, dying. “I see them Thad, that’s why you’re going to step aside as I—”

“What if they’re all like this fire witch, their minds broken and rendered to nothing more than terrified, instinctual shells? Then what?”

It took me a moment to register what he said, and it clicked. “You don’t think they can be saved.”

He shook his head. “I think we don’t know enough. Ones like this one . . . would it be better to simply end her pain? Would you want to exist like this? I don’t know if they’re all this bad or not.”

I resisted the urge to shudder. No. No, I would not want to be left alive like them. Thad moved towards the fire witch and I cut him off, still unsure what side he was on.

“What will it take for you to trust me?” he said calmly, though with a touch of irritation. He made no further move towards me or the witch.

A dry laugh escaped me. “Try to lessen physical assaults, for starters.”

Thad’s gaze darkened with a mixture of shame and arousal, and I lowered my eyes as a blush crept up the back of my neck. I shouldn’t have taken my eyes from him. Kieran would have been disappointed. I let my guard down for that one second to look away, to imagine for a moment that Thad wasn’t a threat to me. That’s why I was too slow to stop it when Thad’s leg connected with my knees, sending me to the ground. He reached out with both hands and grabbed my wings, roughly twisting the delicate skin in his fingers. I made a harsh, guttural sound that was half scream, half distress call. He jerked in response, loosening his grip momentarily before twisting again without mercy. I suppressed the urge to whimper.

That was it. Once I got free, I’d flay him.

“I hope I’m not interrupting?” Severn’s oily voice made me feel more unclean than Thad’s grip on my skin.

“Rot in—”

Thad’s knee to my kidney caught me completely off guard, the shock silencing me more than the pain, which was minimal.

“Just having a . . . lesson,” Thad responded, and I would have murdered him right there if I’d been able.